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Post by Admin on Apr 21, 2016 19:11:33 GMT
This week, Nato ambassadors are scheduled to sit down with their Russian counterpart, Alexander Grushko, at Nato headquarters outside Brussels to discuss an agenda that includes all the troubled areas that East and West should be talking about: Ukraine, Syria, the greater Middle East, Afghanistan, perhaps also Iran. The good news is that such an agenda suggests a reversion to something like an East-West normal. Desirable though that would be, however, there is also a need for clarity. That this meeting is happening at all marks a significant climb-down - and not by Russia. It is taking place only because the Western side, i.e. Nato, has decided that some talking is better than none. And this is quite a turnaround. Cooperation had continued on Afghanistan and Iran, and to an extent, discreetly, over Syria. But the particular initiative, the attitudinal change, that revived the Nato-Russia Council came from the Western side. It was the West that had blocked pretty much all channels of communications in the wake of Crimea, and it was the West that was now trying to re-establish them. No new opening could be happening, of course, without the acquiescence of Russia, and the Kremlin has played its part - in not rejecting a series of deliberately understated Western initiatives. In February, Russia’s ambassador to Nato, Grushko, addressed a London military think-tank, the Royal United Services Institute, in unusually conciliatory terms. And last month, a former Russian foreign minister turned think-tanker, Igor Ivanov - who tries to keep channels open to the West - delivered a similar message at a Chatham House security conference also in London. Asked whether Russia was prepared to re-enter dialogue with Nato, he answered rhetorically, “Why not?” It was Nato, he pointed out, not Russia, that had suspended the Nato-Russia Council in the first place. And it was Nato that would have to mend the broken connections. To this extent, this week’s Nato-Russia Council meeting represents a big diplomatic victory for Russia. More significantly, however, it constitutes a victory for realism in foreign policy, on the part of East and West.
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Post by Admin on May 2, 2016 19:07:19 GMT
Scrambling to resuscitate a nearly dead truce in Syria, the Obama administration has again been forced to turn to Russia for help, with little hope for the desired U.S. outcome. At stake are thousands of lives and the fate of a feeble peace process essential to the fight against the Islamic State group, and Secretary of State John Kerry has appealed once more to his Russian counterpart for assistance in containing and reducing the violence, particularly around city of Aleppo. Kerry spoke at length on Friday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to that end, and had been hoping to meet with Lavrov soon, according to U.S. officials. Kerry arrived in the Swiss capital on Sunday evening and headed into talks with Jordan’s foreign minister, Nasser Judeh. The top U.S. diplomat scheduled meetings on Monday with U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura and Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir before planning to return to Washington. But Lavrov was not expected to be in Geneva, complicating Kerry’s efforts to make the case directly to the Russians for more pressure on their Syrian government allies to stop or at least limit attacks in Aleppo.
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Post by Admin on May 13, 2016 19:00:22 GMT
The United States switched on an $800 million missile shield in Romania on Thursday that it sees as vital to defend itself and Europe from so-called rogue states but the Kremlin says is aimed at blunting its own nuclear arsenal. To the music of military bands at the remote Deveselu air base, senior U.S. and NATO officials declared operational the ballistic missile defense site, which is capable of shooting down rockets from countries such as Iran that Washington says could one day reach major European cities. "As long as Iran continues to develop and deploy ballistic missiles, the United States will work with its allies to defend NATO," said U.S. Deputy Defence Secretary Robert Work, standing in front of the shield's massive gray concrete housing that was adorned with a U.S. flag. Despite Washington's plans to continue to develop the capabilities of its system, Work said the shield would not be used against any future Russian missile threat. "There are no plans at all to do that," he told a news conference. When complete, the defensive umbrella will stretch from Greenland to the Azores. On Friday, the United States will break ground on a final site in Poland due to be ready by late 2018, completing the defense line first proposed almost a decade ago. The full shield also includes ships and radars across Europe. It will be handed over to NATO in July, with command and control run from a U.S. air base in Germany. Russia is incensed at such of show of force by its Cold War rival in formerly communist-ruled eastern Europe. Moscow says the U.S.-led alliance is trying to encircle it close to the strategically important Black Sea, home to a Russian naval fleet and where NATO is also considering increasing patrols.
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Post by Admin on Jun 5, 2016 18:55:51 GMT
A Syrian girl who lost her legs during a terrorist attack in Aleppo has been brought to Moscow to receive medical care. On April 16, Sidra Zaarur, a 10-year-old girl from the Syrian city of Aleppo, was dealt a life-shattering blow: she lost both legs during a terrorist attack which took the lives of her sister and nephew. Furthermore, the hospital in Aleppo wasn't equipped to help her recover from this ordeal, so the girl’s parents sought help from the Russian military. They didn't even have to wait for a response.
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Post by Admin on Aug 18, 2016 18:27:13 GMT
A prominent Iranian lawmaker confirmed Wednesday that Russia is using an Iranian air base for airstrikes in Syria, as Moscow said another wave of airstrikes launched from the Islamic Republic struck the east of the war-ravaged country. The comments by Alaeddin Boroujerdi, the head of the Iranian parliament’s national security and foreign policy committee, are the first official acknowledgment that Russian planes are flying out of Iran’s Shahid Nojeh Air Base. Russia on Tuesday first announced that it had launched the strikes from near the Iranian city of Hamedan and struck targets in three provinces in northern and eastern Syria. The Defense Ministry on Wednesday announced a new wave of airstrikes out of Iran, saying its jets took off earlier in the day from a base southwest of the Iranian capital, Tehran, to strike targets in the east of Syria. It is virtually unheard in recent history for Iran to allow a foreign power to use one of its bases to stage attacks. Russia has also never used the territory of another country in the Middle East for its operations inside Syria, where it has been carrying out an aerial campaign in support of President Bashar Assad’s government for nearly a year. Iran is also a major supporter of Assad.
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